Playing With / Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves

Basic Trope: Somebody betrays their side to help the villain, but the villain then harms them.

• Straight: Chancellor Bob, who works for The Good Kingdom and Queen Alice, sells military secrets to The Evil Empire's General Charlie. After the Kingdom is conquered, Charlie has Bob executed.
• Exaggerated:
  • Bob sells nude photos of Queen Alice to the Empire. As soon as Charlie has the photos in hand, he proceeds to butcher Bob in a Bloody Hilarious fashion.
  • The Empire makes a point of executing any traitor according to the customs of the betrayed nation.
  • Charlie kills Bob's entire family because he's 'proven' them to be "an untrustworthy bloodline".
• Downplayed:
  • Neither General Charlie nor Emperor Evulz trusts Bob to be loyal to them, but they did promise him a reward, so they give Bob a well-paying-but-unimportant job in the Imperial capital where he'll be constantly watched.
  • General Charlie keeps his agreement that Chancellor Bob will be kept safe. He takes him to a faraway backwater nation where no one recognizes him, and is thus not aware of his deeds. Bob doesn't complain, but is inwardly disappointed to have not received the luxuries he believed he would.
  • The Empire does honor their agreements, even when treachery is involved. However, simply betraying your people without such an agreement beforehand and hoping for a reward will get you killed with the rest.
  • Citizens of the Kingdom who support the Empire are allowed to immigrate, only to face discrimination due to most Imperial citizens having prejudiced perspectives.
• Justified:
  • Bob has made it clear he's a self-serving opportunist with Chronic Backstabbing Disorder, and Charlie doesn't feel like waiting for his inevitable betrayal. Or he just doesn't like working with traitors anyway.
  • Bob assassinates Queen Alice and delivers her head to Charlie, who angrily explains that he wanted Alice alive to use as a hostage, not made into a martyr.
  • Bob has been blackmailing Charlie into accepting his treachery in the first place. Charlie gets revenge as soon as Bob no longer has leverage.
  • Charlie and the Emperor don't want to make treachery seem acceptable, because that would increase the risk of their own minions betraying them. If every traitor you see gets killed by the person they helped, you won't be eager to turn traitor yourself.
  • Bob betrayed Alice because he was mistakenly under the impression that Charlie ascribed to a similar ideology as him. Charlie doesn't ascribe to that ideology, and he knows he won't be able to trust Bob once Bob realizes that, so he decides to get rid of him before problems can arise.
  • Bob was an Unwitting Pawn who had fully served his purpose. It would be detrimental to keep him around.
  • Charlie wants to put Bob in his place.
  • Bob entire plan was "collaborate with the enemy to advance my position", the fact that he still sees Charlie and Evulz as enemies means he is not to be trusted.
• Inverted:
  • Chancellor Bob remains unfailingly loyal to his queen and country, refusing to renounce them even at gunpoint, which earns him Villain Respect from Charlie and gets him spared from death.
  • Chancellor Bob remains unfailingly loyal to his queen and country, refusing to renounce them even at gunpoint, which earns him scorn and disgust from Charlie who proceeds to viciously execute him to make an example of those who dare oppose the Empire.
  • Bob is a Fake Defector who meets up with Charlie to "deliver the documents", then kills him.
  • Bob remains loyal to Alice, but she has him executed either because she needs to make absolutely sure she purged all possible traitors, she had a paranoid Moment of Weakness, or she was Evil All Along.
• Subverted:
  • Charlie is about to have Bob executed, until he learns that Bob had a very good reason for his actions: Queen Alice killed his daughter for a trivial offense on Bob's part.
  • General Charlie was working for Queen Alice all along, thus making him a betrayed party, not a beneficiary of the treachery.
• Double Subverted:
  • General Charlie sympathizes with Bob's reason for betraying Alice, but Emperor Evulz does not, and has him executed.
  • General Charlie lies to Emperor Evulz about why he killed Bob, claiming that "we shouldn't trust a traitor", and Evulz agrees with his reasoning.
• Zig Zagged: General Charlie has a policy to deal with traitors based on their motives for betrayal. Chancellor Bob is executed because he was bribed into treachery, but since Minister Dorothy turned her coat for ideological reasons, she gets rewarded and recruited.
• Parodied: General Charlie says he will give Chancellor Bob exactly what he deserves in a suitably ominous fashion. Cue Charlie punishing Bob by... slapping him on the wrist.
  General Charlie: Bad Chancellor, bad! No betraying your boss!
  Chancellor Bob: B-but I'm betraying her for you!
  General Charlie: That's so beside the point!
• Lampshaded:
  • "You really think I'm going to trust someone who's willing to sell out his own people? You'll turn on me too if you get the chance!"
  • Charlie: "I will ensure that you receive exactly what you deserve." Bob: "I... don't suppose you could rephrase that in a less frightening way?"
• Averted: The Empire pays Bob quite generously for his efforts, and ensures he is protected from anyone looking for revenge.
• Enforced: The writers want to make it clear that Chancellor Bob is not a Karma Houdini.
• Invoked: General Charlie deliberately engineers a situation that will lead Bob to betray Alice, for the purpose of getting him killed in a manner that will raise no ire.
• Exploited:
  • Queen Alice recognized Bob's treachery from the start and had her court mage place a death-curse on him. The second Charlie stabs Bob, the curse activates and kills everyone in the room.
  • The Empire imprisons Bob, puts out covert propaganda depicting him as a More Despicable Minion to the Emperor, and then publicly executes him. This nets them some approval from their new subjects, who like that "at least they killed someone bad too."
• Conversed: "Man, even the bad guys hate that scummy chancellor!"
• Discussed: Chancellor Bob ponders becoming a mole for the Evil Empire ... while visiting the Good Kingdom's harshest, most secure prison. Moreover, he's within earshot of former Minister Carol, who reminds him that that's how she ended up in jail.
• Defied:
  • General Charlie is disgusted by Bob and privately comments that he deserves death, but begrudgingly holds up his end of the deal. Charlie wants to encourage compliance among the Empire's new subjects, and killing a collaborator would be counterproductive towards that end.
  • Chancellor Bob offers his services to General Charlie, who tells him he must first publicly renounce his loyalty to the Kingdom before he will be allowed to change sides.
  • Charlie fully intends to execute Bob after the betrayal is complete, but Bob insists on being paid in advance and through proxies, so that Charlie's men will never meet Bob personally. By the time Charlie gets the info he wants, Bob is long gone, far away and safe.
  • Bob anticipates Charlie's intentions about "honoring" his deals and decides to skip straight to stabbing Charlie in the back, but not before taking the time to tell Charlie that he fully agrees with Charlie's disdain for traitors and decides that Charlie himself should be rewarded accordingly.
• Deconstructed:
  • Word spreads about how the Empire "honors" its deals, ensuring that nobody will cooperate with them. After all, why should they if they'll just be killed for it?
  • With all Kingdom officials either killed in battle, on the run, or killed for being traitors, the Imperial government suffers from not having any skilled locals to help govern their new lands.
  • Bob survives, but comes out rejected by both the heroes and the villains. With no one left to join or even betray, Bob becomes an unpredictable and dangerous Wild Card.
• Reconstructed: The Emperor takes pains to inform the world that this behavior only applies to treachery; he will honor all other deals instead of killing the helpers. The Empire is lauded for its integrity and consistency.
• Implied:
  • Chancellor Bob goes to meet with General Charlie. He doesn't come back out of the room where they meet. It's unclear if he was killed or something else.
  • After the invasion, Chancellor Bob is last seen escaping across the countryside, evading forces from both sides of the conflict. It's not clear what happens to him, but making enemies of both sides means he is unlikely to get very far.
  • Chancellor Bob is killed by General Charlie after yet another betrayal attempt. At least that's what Charlie claims is why he killed Bob; it's possible that it's a false pretext.
• Played for Drama:
  • Former Chancellor Bob is sent to the Empire's worst prison, where he languishes and has several My God, What Have I Done? moments that he can't act on to redeem himself.
  • Bob is a member of an oppressed minority who helps the Empire because Charlie promised to improve his people's condition under Imperial rule. When Bob realizes Charlie is going to kill him, he weeps in despair at how his treachery was all for nothing and there's no hope for his people.
• Played for Laughs: General Charlie inflicts Amusing Injuries on Chancellor Bob.

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